The Eye of the Hurricane
by QueenofConstellations
Summary: Takes place immediately after 3.02. Anna decides to tell Edmund she's a spy.
**A/N: This is a little angsty, but a lot of us have been talking on Tumblr about how nervous we are about what's going to happen when Anna tells Edmund she's a spy so here we go!**

Edmund's lips were soft, forgiving, on Anna's, and she felt her hands clutch even more desperately against his face. Her fingers were careful to avoid his collar, his wig, everything that gave him comfort, but his hands, tugging at her waist, his lips drinking in her own fervor, her own fear, was almost too much to bear.

She forced herself to pull away, tears still stinging her eyes, and rested her forehead against Edmund's, trying to gather the courage to say what she had to say. It would ruin them; it would ruin _him_ , but she had to do it. She couldn't keep the words in her chest anymore, bouncing around there, just waiting for the right moment to burst forth.

"Edmund," she whispered, her breath ghosting over his face. His eyes were still closed, his hands shaking around her waist. He was so affected by her, so intoxicated. She loved that about him. She wasn't sure if she loved him, but she knew her affection for him ran deeper than simply a means to an end. That meant this conversation, the one she was putting off even in every pause she took to breathe, had to happen. No matter how it changed his opinion of her. "Edmund, I have to say something."

He finally opened his eyes, his own happiness, the relief in his eyes, draining away at the tone of her voice. She figured she had hidden her apprehension well, but she couldn't hide it from him.

"I'm listening," he prompted, his words soft. They still hadn't moved apart; she could hear the fire crackling behind her, the soft sound of the wind outside the window.

She hesitated once more, and he seemed to understand. He stepped away from her, the easier to see her entire face, and surveyed it. She did the same. His lips, usually so pale and forgotten, were flushed like his high cheekbones, the muscles in his neck tense. Anna let one of her hands rest on the side of his neck, gently splayed across his skin.

There it was again, the look of adoration in his eyes, the love that brimmed there so easily. Anna bit her lip. This would be the last time she saw it.

"Abraham has…" she stopped, regained her strength, and forged ahead. "Abraham means to kill you after Simcoe."

His face immediately hardened; the sweetness that had just been there was eradicated by the reemergence of the militant Hewlett, the one that frightened and strengthened Anna simultaneously.

"How do you know?" he asked, his voice low, dangerous. It sent a shiver through her.

"He said it to me."

Edmund clenched his jaw, setting his cheekbones into sharper relief. "And you chose to warn me rather than keep your friend safe," he said as if he was answering an unasked question. But his eyes had gone dark, unfamiliar, and Anna felt that she had swam into waters that were too deep, and there was something shadowy lurking beneath her, waiting for the right moment to strike.

"That's not all," she said quietly.

Edmund's eyes jumped to her. "Isn't that enough?" he cried. "Even in a truce for the sake of the greater good, these damned rebels can't keep a promise! No, Abraham must hang for this. It's either that or I invite my own demise."

"Edmund, please –"

"Mary and Thomas might be safe here at Whitehall, if Richard will be kind enough to take them in," Edmund continued, now moving into logistics. "Of course, if Abraham is hanged, we will never know the co-conspirators –"

"Edmund!" she exclaimed, her voice almost a shout. He finally halted, his face turning toward hers, bathed in the light of the fire. "Please, sit down."

"I really don't think –"

Desperate, Anna cradled his face in between her hands. "Edmund, please. I don't know how to say this, and you're going to be rather shocked…I just – please, sit down."

Her tone seemed to frighten him enough to sit down, his face turned up to her. He looked so innocent, so worried, that Anna almost lost her nerve. She clenched her shaking hands together, trying to keep them steady – how had they been so steady when she killed a man, but not when she had to tell an unfortunate truth? – and heaved a long breath.

Before she could stop herself, she pulled Edmund's face to hers and kissed him again, this time without her tears, without her uncertainty. He was shorter than her now, sitting on the trunk, but his lips were still sweet and soft. His hands were resting on her waist again, the feeling of his hands pressing a heat onto her skin that bolstered her.

"I thought you had to tell me something," he whispered against her mouth.

She let out an almost hysterical laugh that pulled a chuckle out of him. "I wanted to make sure I had one more kiss first."

"My dear, you can have as many as you like," Edmund said, pressing a kiss to her hand. Anna wanted to believe him, but she shook her head as the notion and its impossibility put strain on her heart.

"Edmund," she began, "earlier you said you could trust me; that I was the only person you could trust."

"You are," he replied.

"I'm not."

He furrowed his brows and made to stand up, but Anna held out her hand to stop him. "Just…just stay there."

"Anna –" his voice held a warning, and she could hear him almost begging her not to say what he was rapidly figuring out. "Anna, _don't_ –"

"Edmund –"

"Don't say it," he pleaded with her. "If you don't say it, we can just…pretend…"

So he already suspected her. The fact that he would propose marriage, play at protecting her made sense now. How else to keep the spy you loved safe? To marry her to a British officer. "Pretend what?" she cried, tears filling her eyes and threatening to spill over. "There's no pretending anymore."

" _Please_ –"

" _Let me say it_ ," she insisted. "You need to hear it."

"Anna, I am _begging_ you –"

"I'm a traitor," she said finally, the words bursting out of her like a gunshot. He exhaled into the silence that followed, and she felt a sob readying itself to tear from her throat. "I'm so sorry, Edmund."

He dropped his head to his hands, his shoulders tense with something that was too devastating for her to look at. She turned away from him, letting tears finally fall freely, streaming from her cheeks to her neck and down her bodice.

"Who else?" his voice was broken; she could hear tears in it.

"What?" she asked, her own voice shaking.

" _Who else is a goddamn spy?"_ he roared, ripping off his wig and throwing it against the wall. It settled on the floor, forgotten. "Who bloody else is there, huh? And you just let Abraham take the fall? You let him…oh my god." The implications of what she said seemed to finally hit him, and his righteous rage gave way to something much more tender, but no less violent. He ran his hands through his hair, his dark brown real hair, and Anna felt guilt slam heavily into her.

"Oh my god," he whispered again, the exclamation harsh despite the low volume. "I cannot believe –"

"Edmund –"

" _Do not_ – do not call me that anymore," he was begging her now, and she was sobbing openly. She felt her lungs contract, asking for more air, and she sank to the floor, trying to heave breaths that just wouldn't stay in her chest. He watched her, his own face trying to hold back tears of his own. "Now, who else?"

" _Please_ –"

"Mrs. Strong," he said sharply, and the way he spat her name pulled more sobs from her. "You will tell me who else is betraying the King in this city or by his power I will..."

She looked up at him, waiting for her sentence, but he couldn't give it. The wind had been sucked out of the room. The same energy that consumed him with a whirlwind fluttered and spluttered into nothing.

"What?" she asked. "What will you do to me? Hang me, like you threatened Abraham?"

"You should be hanged," he said firmly. "No matter how revolting the idea is to me."

"To hang a woman?"

"To hang _you_."

He lowered himself to the floor beside her, and despite his insistence in propriety once more, he pulled her into his arms, letting her sob anew against his jacket.

"Anna, why?" he asked quietly into the silence. "Why would you do this?"

Her breathing was so ragged he feared she would faint. "They took everything from me. You and your King. My father. My husband. My tavern, my home, my livelihood. You took my dignity, my own protection. I couldn't even stand against Simcoe once you and your bloody King were done with me."

He watched her as she let out her anger, her _deserved_ anger. "Anna, this is _treason_."

"So hang me," her challenge wasn't a daring one, or a bluff. It was the challenge of someone who truly felt like it was inevitable. "That's what comes after this, right?"

He wished he could pull his gun on her the way he did to Abraham. He truly wished he could be a slave to his honor, to his King. But just the thought of it pulled him apart. "I'm sorry," he whispered, his arm around her shoulders tightening. "I'm sorry for the part I played in your misfortune." He paused, trying to swallow back the words that came next. "But I cannot condone treason."

"So hang me," she said again. "But I will not name anyone else."

He didn't speak after that for a long time, trying to understand why he felt so wretched when he finally had the woman he loved in his embrace. She was crying anew, her shoulders shaking. He didn't understand what was left to cry about, but he didn't ask her. He just held her while she continued to sob, her body heating up in his embrace as her sobs got more frantic.

He released her and moved to sit in front of her, the both of them on the floor. He held her hands tightly in his own.

"Why tell me now?" he asked gently.

Her hands were clammy, quivering. Her eyes were ringed with red, her lush eyelashes wet with her tears. She was breathtaking even in her weakest state. She was a hurricane, the calm before the winds tore apart an entire city. He was in complete awe of her, even now. Even condemned as a traitor. Now that he was looking at her again, he confirmed what he had suspected. He had always known she was involved. She was too strong, too stubborn not to be involved. Once she had come to the court to beg for her husband's pardon, to ignore the magistrate, to even forsake her vows, he knew. But he had looked the other way for the sake of her life.

And yet, he trusted her implicitly. He knew she wouldn't give his life freely. She was a spy, and he trusted her so completely he offered his body, soul and love to her while he knew of her allegiance.

"You have to understand that I had nothing to live for when I joined the cause," she said finally, her voice thick. "The King had taken everything from me. Truthfully, I joined because they promised to kill Simcoe. But they didn't. And Abe changed. Everything changed. And now…" she paused, and her hands tightened in his, "now I have something to lose again. And I can't lose you."

He didn't answer her. Knowing that she considered him important enough to reveal her secret plot, to offer herself up as a traitor, spoke more to him than anything Abraham had said in his own blackmail tirade. She gave herself up because of him.

"Even if this means that I hang on the same gallows as Abe, at least I'll die knowing that he didn't kill you," she said finally.

And suddenly, he was kissing her again, kissing her like he was a drowning man, and she was air. He could think of nothing else to do; nothing that would solve the situation. He could lose her at any moment and she him. He felt the desperation in the way her lips pulled at his, saying words she didn't have the courage to express aloud. He felt her love, her fear, the tenderness borne out of the coldness she had received from everyone else. He tried to give her comfort, reassurance in return.

She was gripping his jacket tight in her fists, and his hand clenched tightly around her long hair, pulling her closer to him. He willingly let her pull him into her tide, a man consumed by something as unforgiving and untamable as the ocean. He let her drown him. Just like she couldn't lose him; he couldn't lose her. She pulled away, breathing heavily, her hands reaching for his neck, yanking free his perfectly tied collar and she dropped slow, deliberate kisses there, listening for his reactions, for his own hands jumping to her body when she pressed her lips to just the right spot. She let him consume her.

Finally, he pulled away from her, pressing a slow, soft kiss to her forehead.

"Now, what are we going to do about Abraham?" he asked matter-of-factly, despite the gruffness of his voice. She hesitated. "I can't have him reveal you in a fit of rage. No, something else must be done."

"Let's just run away from here," she said softly, resting her head on his shoulder. "Run away to Scotland."

He chuckled quietly. "Yes," he said, even though they both knew they couldn't. "Scotland it is."


End file.
